iSsi SCIENCE HIS VOCATION lOi 



Natural History Chair. I know no finer field for exertion for 

 any naturalist than Sydney Harbour itself. Should such a Pro- 

 fessorship be hereafter established, I trust you will jog the 

 memory of my Australian friends in my behalf. I have finally 

 decided that my vocation is science, and I have made up my 

 mind to the comparative poverty which is its necessary adjunct, 

 and to the no less certain seclusion from the ordinary pleasures 

 and rewards of men. I say this without the slightest idea that 

 there is anything to be enthusiastic about in either science or 

 its professors. A year behind the scenes is quite enough to 

 disabuse one of all rose-pink illusions. 



But it is equally clear to me that for a man of my tempera- 

 ment, at any rate, the sole secret of getting through this life 

 with anything like contentment is to have full scope for the 

 development of one's faculties. Science alone seems to me to 

 afford this scope — Law, Divinity, Physic, and Politics being in 

 a state of chaotic vibration between utter humbug and utter 

 scepticism. 



There is a great stir in the scientific world at present about 

 who is to occupy Konig's place at the British Museum, and 

 whether the whole establishment had better not, quoad Zoology, 

 be remodelled and placed under Owen's superintendence. The 

 heart-burnings and jealousies about this matter are beyond all 

 conception. Owen is both feared and hated, and it is predicted 

 that if Gray and he come to be officers of the same institution, 

 in a year or two the total result will be a caudal vertebra of 

 each remaining after the manner of the Kilkenny cats. 



However, I heard yesterday, upon what professed to be very 

 good authority, that Owen would not leave the College under 

 any circumstances. 



It is astonishing with what an intense feeling of hatred 

 Owen is regarded by the majority of his contemporaries, with 

 Mantell as arch-hater. The truth is, he is the superior of most, 

 and does not conceal that he knows it, and it must be confessed 

 that he does some very ill-natured tricks now and then. A 

 striking specimen of one is to be found in his article on Lyell 

 in the last Quarterly, where he pillories poor Quekett — a most 

 inoffensive man and his own immediate subordinate — in a man- 

 ner not more remarkable for its severity than for its bad taste. 

 That review has done him much harm in the estimation of 

 thinking men — and curiously enough, since it was written, rep- 

 tiles have been found in the old red sandstone, and insectivo- 

 rous mammals in the Trias ! Owen is an able man, but to my 



